My Grocery Diet Experiment: Cheat Days

Your votes were unanimous: the grocery diet experiment lives on! As I approach the end of Week 2, I couldn't be more thrilled about your decision for me to keep going, so thank you!

Let's play catch-up, since I'm still so sick with this stupid death plague cold it's all I can do to get through work then into my PJs, sleep, shower, repeat. Thank gawd for Donna and the lobster pot full of homemade chicken noodle soup she sent to the office with Amy (above). Pearl onions! Love her.

So, despite whether you thought I bent the rules by using my $20 from selling a set of sheets for coffee, a half gallon of milk, some olive oil, and dinner at the yummy vegan restaurant Life Alive in Cambridge with my friend Alli...

...or by swapping her my Betsey Johnson cocktail dress for this bag of fresh produce, kombucha, and chicken breasts, everyone agreed that one cheat day does not a failure make.

I would have to agree: according to my Mint.com account, I haven't spent a single cent on food so far in January, I've already saved $450 (based on our average weekly spending on groceries, coffee shops & dining out over the last 3 years) and I lost the pounds I gained over the holidays! I don't know what to call that except shockingly impressive for a mere 13 days. That's more than my monthly rent was the last time I tried to live on $3 a day...

So, all of my friends and co-workers have asked, why am I doing it? At the beginning, I had no clue except that I thought it would be fascinating and exciting to try out. Most people commit to a spending fast or debt diet in order to pay down a maxxed out credit card or a student loan, but I am truly lucky enough to say I no longer have those things looming overhead.

The more I think about it, my motivation is really for a fresh start — to clear out the clutter in my culinary life (and my diet) and get back down to basics. Which categories of my food pyramid (and cabinets) are completely off kilter? Which groceries do I buy every week and then regularly toss? What are the core ingredients I need to make the same recipes I cook every week, but in a healthier, homemade, more locally sourced, simpler way?

Ginger and I spent the weekend so far in our PJs, cooking recipes we'd been meaning to try for ages (brunch from leftover spaghetti! more on that later today), reading books (finally getting around to Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, free on my new Kindle — thanks for the swap, Dad!), and streaming period dramas (hollah back, Bleak House and Downton Abbey).

But, since I've now been in the same clothes and spot on the couch pretty much continuously for 36 hours, it's time to get out and do something, so we're headed to a "Sundate" dinner (gift certificate from three Christmases ago) and to finally buy me a winter coat (thank you, AMEX gift card). Hope you're enjoying your long, wintry weekend!

Story & photos: Copyright 2012, Shoestring LLC & Melissa Massello.